Monday 18 May 2009

Wave Theory

Have you ever thought about how relations between people can be well simulated by wave interactions? It’s a simple analogy; if you consider the two people in the relation as two normal sine waves you can easily see how the interaction of waves can predict the outcome of the relation.

Take a look at the first case, the most positive of the lot maybe, where the two individuals share the same frequency and are in complete sync with each other; don’t bother bout the amplitude, because no matter what it is, the positive effect of each wave on the other leads to a resonance fed by both waves and hence leading to a final where the sum of the two is greater than the whole. The two people magnify each other’s characteristics and help them achieve things beyond the scope of what they might have been able to do individually.

The next situation is the completely the opposite where the phase difference between the two similar waves where the peak of one corresponds to the dip of the other. The two waves maybe the same but bad timing just annihilates the relation and there’s nothing left. This perfectly displays why sometimes two people who are completely alike may not be able get along with each other sometimes.

How about a phase difference between the two where the crest of one times with the node of the other? The result is a mitigating effect where the high points of one of the twain offset the depression of the other to regulate and prevent the sum total from deteriorating to the extreme. You will still have highs and lows but they probably won’t be as potent and therein lies the catch, you might not fall as low as before but you may as well not be able to jump as high as you could.

But life doesn’t work in static phases. People are constantly varying and therefore so are their phases and maybe even frequencies. The interaction between people is all about beats created in the interaction and the music it becomes which corresponds into the unfathomable magical feeling that it brings to our hearts. The music may be anything from rhythmic to melodious, a complicated symphony or a cantankerous cacophony, it may even be silence, nothing at all, or a growing crescendo that peaks and then fades flowingly, beautifully into the distance. Then is that how we must live life? As a ‘jugalbandi’ where we are constantly tuning in and out of each other and trying to perfect the mix as it happens, learning from the mistakes and incorporating new bits and pieces to enrich the acoustic total to feed and nourish our souls?